MeliGoesRogue

It has arrived. The water drifts down from above me, pouring over me. It is meant to cleanse and instead it beats. My capillaries burst beneath it and my eyes begin to contribute to the downpour. I have descended from the mountain tops and what lies below is the rocky valley. I do not trust the feet beneath me nor each step they take. I can see the road before me, though the curves it takes makes my stomach quiver at the thought. I cautiously move forward for fear of what standing still will cause me to miss, and yet the fear of what lies ahead or what doesn’t shakes my knees and breeds distrust within me.

We truly are each our own worlds. No matter the parts that we share there are pieces of us that remain only ours. I fear those pieces have become too numerous for me. It is when this moon rises on this day this year that they have begun to topple me. Those things I have seen, those things I have yet to feel become a tether to the silence my soul sinks deeper into each passing year. This sadness is safety, it is the halls of a dark home I know too well. I do not lose my way but rather find the cold dark corners familiar. I ease my back against it like a castle against the loch, safe from invaders.

Sleep has returned to me and has even brought with it pleasant dreams, dreams I could only wish for. But are they just dreams. It seems a cruel joke to offer me the sleep I have long desired and the dreams I have patiently awaited only to have the morning light steal them from my sight. Patience I have found is not something that is needed or asked for, true patience does not ask it simply waits. Each year brings more patience and unopened boxes. I do not wait because I expect, I wait because there is nothing else left to do, the choice has never been mine. Those who walk beside me do not lay beside me, do not comfort me, they do not guide me. How difficult it is to explain, this is not ingratitude, this is longing, this is emptiness that no landscape can fulfill.

I heard a pastor talk once about Controlled Burns. In the forest with storms branches break, trees fall and debris begins to form, this debris will dry and become kindling, that which sparks an easy flame. So these firefighters set a perimeter and they light it up. It is in this controlled burn that they are able to clear this debris and avoid a dangerous flame by lighting a fire. Perhaps the timing is bad considering this is the day chosen to celebrate my life, but in many ways this is my controlled burn. I need to burn these things here, with all of you watching within the confines of this screen. This has always been the way I get things out, I simply have witnesses now. You have all in many ways become my accountability.

I drop these tethers or communication buoys with each land I visit. I left a part of my fear in Scotland. She’s an iceberg and I was only able to leave part of what was above the water. This burn is reaching its end as the piano reaches its crescendo and finds its way down to meet the violin before quietly sending me to the land where the things I desire await me when my eyes close and my body paralyzes.

Today is my new day but before I could see the forest for the trees I had to clear the debris that has long been blocking my view. I pray my eyes adjust to the new light this cleared path will bring. I pray that patience no longer becomes the enemy always awaiting me when I slip between the sheets, I pray she be the path to the things I dream of; the farm on the mountaintop, the smell of bread early in the morning, arms wrapped tight around my waist, the gentle kick in my belly.

Farewell…